As far as nicotine vapes (smokeless inhalers) go, a relatively new geeky phenomenon has hit the streets (literally). The Geek Bar Pulse product line is a new, emergent brand that has various special features
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| A few Geek Bar Pulse vapes, one a Geek Bar Pulse X vape. |
I’m expecting to get paid, soon, for some project work that I’ve been doing, that’s still ongoing. I’m in a fortunate place in time, and life, where I can make use of a good portion of that money as expendable income. I spoke to my therapist, today, about my numerous fragrance ingredients purchases I’ve done, recently, and we have a collaborative project conceptually developing, involving making candles, at one of our sessions. The conversation ignited my thirst for more materials to have on hand. The thing was, about my conversation with my therapist, was that I told her that I was mostly done with collecting customary fragrance ingredients to have on hand, that I’ve been interested in, and that I was becoming more inclined towards niche and specialty items that I could procure.
I’ve already recently ordered a few or several shipments domestically, from state-local suppliers Perfumer’s Apprentice and Eden Botanicals, as well as neighboring state Oregon’s Liberty Natural. I’ve also recently tried out Perfumer’s World, based in Thailand, again, and if there was any doubt (there are some sentiments of doubt, in online forums) about the quality of their ingredients, I can say that those notions should be set aside, and the supplier be once again considered for stocking up on materials, being assured of their quality and conformance to organoleptic standards - I had some doubts, here, myself, for a while, but I checked in again, with a repurchase of one ingredient I found to be lacking in quality and conformance, based on a better sample I had received, from yet another supplier, but this time, the material was of high quality, with chemical physical properties I was looking for, that matched, here. I also tried out their Cashmeran, and I found it equal in practically all ways to my former resource for the material, whom had recently raised the price dramatically on Cashmeran, a versatile and go-to ingredient for me.
Now that I have many scents that I’d like to have, on hand, I started to have wanderlust for specialty and exotic ingredients, even if for mostly a reference library of scent-experience that would be rare, and fairly unique, in terms of materials - would exotic and rare specialty materials ever really be viable resources that I might reasonably use, in my product development schemas? Something to consider - working under constraints, rather than indulging overly fanciful ideas for professional aspirational purposes. The supplier that I’ve encountered, which specializes in these rare and exotic materials is Hermitage Oils, based in Italy. Their exclusivity of materials, and therefore, their prices, had previously been prohibitively expensive, but I’ve gotten accustomed to having miniature amounts of materials, as references, rather than as development products, which are cheaper, and more accessible. It’s nice to dream, anyhow, isn’t it, when it comes to fragrance? It’s a dreamy topic, I’d say.
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| The Pigeon Hermit, pre-viz’d and conceptualized in collaboration with ChatGPT, this afternoon. |
I’d spent a few days with my new fragrance composition, and I think it’s great! (still). It uses 16+ ingredients:
Top notes - Bergamot, Ocimene, Carene-3 Delta, Prismantol, Sweet Yuzu, Black Pepper
Mid / Heart - Jasminlactone, Terpineol Alpha, Blackcurrant Bud Absolute, Champaca Yellow Absolute
Base - Palo Santo Key Accord, Iso E Super, Cashmeran, Benzoin Oliffac, Heliotropin Replacer, Special Vanilla Extract
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| My special vanilla bean extract. |
Here’s the latest marketing material for the fragrance (I don’t know how much I like this one):
Sophorxa a powerfully fresh and sweet androgynous floral wood fragrance, with a helping of animalic primal character to it. I’ve still yet to create a bottle of it; I need to work out the drop by drop proportions, or weights.
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| Piotr has some good things going for him, for not being too scared of me. He takes food out of a container, as well as water, for example. |
I took him home and sat him down on my bed, and I went out to do some remote work at the library, which is where I was initially headed when I initially happened upon Piotr. When I came home, he was in the same spot, and I went to bed. I woke up a few times, during the night, and I checked on him, and this morning, I offered him some food and water, and he took both, which is a reassuring sign that he’s generally healthy and in good spirits. I think he’ll make a great pet! He’s a black-feathered pigeon, with some slight luminescence to his neck feathers.
Update: I noticed that Piotr was limping, so I took a look at him, and apparently, he’s got a wounded leg, of some sort. I guess I’ll be taking care of him for a little while, at least, while his leg repairs itself.
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| Piotr walks with a limp, I noticed - after I brought him home. He’ll be staying with me for a while during his recovery. He’s been eating heartily and he likes mineral water. |
Update: I was considering veterinary care for Piotr, but I felt that it could be much more costly than trying to splint his leg myself. Since he’s pretty calm, I feel like I can do it on my own, so I ordered a pigeon leg splint from Foy’s Pigeon Supplies.
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| A pigeon leg splint, from Foy’s, a renowned pigeon and pet supply store. |
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| Piotr awaits his recovery, and he passes the days mostly by sitting on my bed, or a pillow. He goes “home” to a cozy little nook, located behind my pillow. |
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| Piotr, in his nook. I clean his spot once or twice a day, that’s all it takes! |
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| I was able to successfully splint Piotr’s broken leg (or foot). |
Update: 05/19/2025
Piotr the pigeon is starting to show some affections for me, as well as pigeon intelligence. He flew down from his roost, last night, when it started getting dark, and he landed himself on my pillow, where he settled down, for the night, next to my head. I mostly left him alone, since he’s probably feeling things out, with me, as far as his personal security, as well as his place in life, with me.
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| Piotr’s lofty roost, up at the top of the photo, where he likes to situate himself when he wants time to himself, or when he wants to get away. He’s found that this spot is mostly secure for him, as far as being left alone. |
Piotr has been eating well, despite having his leg splinted. He’s definitely adapting well, and he doesn’t hold the splinting against me, in terms of friendliness. He’s demonstrated that he knows when it’s meal time (when I’m having meal time), and he also takes well to demonstrating that he wants to eat, at times, by pecking around, or by showing up at his food and water dishes.
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| Piotr is having a drink of water, here. He’s a picky eater, and he only likes some of the seeds in the seed mixes I give him. Here, he tossed aside his seed bowl, entirely, after having some shrimp with me. He’s got a bit of an attitude! |
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| Piotr, having some scrambled eggs, along with me, as I begin my breakfast, this morning. |
Update: 05/21/2025
Some video content demonstrating Piotr having his customary lunch (seeds), then having a drink of water, and then, he returns to his roost.
After my workplace life fell apart, once more, back in the summer of 2012, I was sent reeling through what’s been over a decade’s worth of flailing attempts at recovering and rebirthing my professional presence, and, alternately, I’d gone through several incarcerations and psychiatric hospitalizations. It sounds pretty bleak, and it has been - I was faced with many an end-of-(work) life scenarios playing out, and I also several genuinely decent job placements that I’d secured through my extensive former work’s contacts list, which numbered in well over 6,000 emails and phone numbers.
Before, and leading up to 2012, it was a period of ups and downs, likewise, in terms of that I’d started out with my newfound professional position, as a software installation gig worker, essentially, on craigslist's computers and tech section, mixed in with some hardware sales and repair work, here and there. Nowadays, I couldn’t possibly regain a foothold in that sort of workplace scenario and job environment, and I feel that, with the advent of App Stores and fully online software update fulfillment, the black and grey markets for software installation tech workers has all but dried up, not to mention that, collectively, on the community side and or on the backend of craigslist, the nomenclature of alluding to that a person is offering software installation services is practically banned, for all intents and purposes.
Losing my way in that workplace came with innumerable complications, as I lost my 19th floor loft, where I stayed, in downtown Los Angeles, as well as that my car broke down, in coming years, thus creating an environment of reckoning with unexpected change and challenges. The welcome mat had all but been pulled out from underneath me, and I was no more prepared than I had been, when I started the work, for dealing with the consequences of a life without craigslist software installation gig work.
During this time of transience and transition, I experienced the graces of kindness and hospitality, on the part of several various individuals and families that had taken me in, as well as some job placements, as I’d mentioned, from my former clientele. That being the case, I can attest to that job offers are truly scarce, in this sort of situation - I’d procured mid to long-term job offers from perhaps 1 in 1,000 people, or businesses, if I averaged out my contacts to the numbers of jobs I’d gotten placed in, within the context of me having lost my work.
The homes I stayed in all had unique Los Angeles signatures to them, varying from Mid City, to the Silver Triangle, in Venice Beach, to Topanga Canyon, and it was a great experience for me, despite being down on life, in other ways, although they all came to an end, for some reason, or other. I suppose that it’s simply challenging to justify adopting someone in my circumstances, as an adult, that I was (I had functional challenges with doing things such as helping out, around the house, for example). I had been spoiled by a plush and volatile work/life balance that I’d eked out, for myself, doing this craigslist thing, and I was mystified, on a regular basis, by rich auditory hallucinations, and a daily variety of narratives of horror and reprieve.
From out of that, and, moving forward, I experienced some renewed bouts of homelessness, one failed (short) long-term romance type of situation, and, the incarcerations and hospitalizations I’d previously mentioned. When I did have housing of my own, back in 2018-2020, the situation was likewise, to my earlier attempts in living independently, haphazard and messy, which eventually led to my being evicted from my Section 8 apartment.
The Covid-19 Pandemic was a period of time that saw, for me, a great bound, in financial terms, as I took advantage of the stimulus and unemployment funds that were given expansive resources and funding during that time. I had, somewhat, of an unprecedented sense, a newfound precedent of having experienced wealth - this time around, I had a rich resource of personal sabbatical freedoms, since I lived in transitional housing placements that were paid for, combined with regular income, provided by the federal and California state government’s stimulus and pandemic unemployment funding - a long lacking financial support mechanism, which allotted me the freedom to deep dive into my research and development modes, with “work,” of other sorts, still seeming to be long and far away fanciful notions of security; things that other people could do, and have, for themselves, whereas I built my works and resolve from out of my skill sets, as a writer, a blogger, an animal lover, a researcher, an artisan, for example, whereas, inside of my mind, I still longed for the excitement of working in tech, and I wondered at the dint of what employed individuals and profitable companies had, that I didn’t have, about me.
That being said, I was on my own, with the (at least) illusory circumstances of otherwise, in an alternate life, perhaps, that wasn’t really mine, having a relatively large regular expendable income, with unemployment payments coming to me, for about 2 years, or so. This windfall did not come without its own caveats and pitfalls, though, and I continued to struggle with mood disorders and delusions. I’ve also, unwittingly, been the victim of unwitting and accidental overdoses, due to fentanyl ingestion, in instances where I’d come across bags of white powder, whereas I found myself desperate, for something else, and I’d make-believe that the synthetic, pharmaceutical-tasting powder was, instead, somehow, my favorite.
Now, for analysis’ sake, I was still caught in, and subject to, unfavorable circumstances, in my own personal and psychological conditioning, and it would still be some years before the drug marketplace would give-ho to a new economy of profiteering, at the expense of putting quality first, alternately. Nowadays, I can take it or leave it, in most instances, and I’m making progress towards becoming drug-abstinent - fortuitous conditioning, as it were: favorable circumstances to wean myself off of drugs, meanwhile, I have richly embedded experientially rewarding hobbies that don’t pay, or get me high, such as caring for the town’s pigeons, to draw some correlation upon perhaps the wisdom of the younger generation, as I attempt to remake my image and portrayal of myself, professionally, given my former failures.
Nowadays,
there’s a lot of hype and buzz surrounding the place of work, itself, in a much more broad and societally-affective sense, with the storm of Artificial Intelligence upon us. I’ve found myself on the bright side of this situation, though, with two remote work opportunities having presented themselves to me, which I’d been accepted for a position with, for both instances. One of the jobs reeks of a financial fraud scheme, as it amounts to that I initiate, upon receiving instruments and instructions for payment transactions to be processed, by myself, through my own accounts, whereupon I would take a percentage, and deposit the sum in to a Bitcoin wallet - all brimming with mystique, and disappointment, as the “company’s” website claims to feature an extensive catalog of goods that they sell, supposedly, as an e-commerce operation (they only feature 4 items for “sale,” in truth). I went along with this mysterious remote work job, however - suspended disbelief, as it were, just to feel out the reality of what working for a company such as this would portend. I made a $50 USD commission, and I paid for a meal and some bank fees, aside from that, perhaps, but the confidence and hallmarks of legitimacy of a real company’s sureness, in operations, were just lacking. Moreover, a recent article by Wired practically mirrored my exact experience, in part, where the article details a woman now caught in dire criminal legal straits, and I figure that I could just as well end up not pleasing somebody, in a big way, somehow, if I likewise continued to do what I’d initially felt, and, moving forward, despite that, continued to feel, was something simply wrong and improper - fraud is a sort of situation that I’m not well-versed in, so I decided to try them out, so to speak, at their offer. My ChatGPT conversation about the situation pointed out some of these flaws, but reading the outcomes of someone else, who is facing prison time, for essentially equivalent circumstances, was enough to set me straight. I also had some moral support, from out of what was formerly cruel hallucinations - a voice that I could trust, for some various reasons of the characterization and nuance of the voice, calmly advised me against continuing with the scheme. Lucrative, sure, yet fumbling in execution, and lacking in full rationality and logic of as to why I was needed, or valuable.
My other job, which I’ve just recently started, involves rating music search results, as a contractor signed up with an intermediary outsourcing establishment that specializes in training Artificial Intelligence models for various clients. I don’t directly work for the client, and the I’ve yet to receive my first payment, but it’s something I can feel much more secure and confident about, given that I’m dedicating real and legitimate hours on a big tech client’s web page portal, where work tasks are detailed, and are consistently fed through, to the task doers. The workers and corporate management and oversight commune on Microsoft Teams chat, and there are assessments that need to be done, in order to qualify as a task worker for the job. I was offered a second position with them, which I’ve yet to see through to the onboarding, so far, but I’m optimistic, as everything feels well-to-do and legitimate, in an organized business sort of way.
So, I’m a remote worker, and my days consist of alternating between working on my iPad Pro and going to the library to work on a computer console - I’ve been feeling out which workstation environment is more productive: the computer has a keyboard and mouse, and a larger screen format, for referencing and researching the reasoning being fed in to the system, for the client’s AI models to be refined, but the iPad Pro is a newer machine, and I have a skilled aptitude in thumb typing, and I can use AZERTY, which I prefer, now, going on several years that I’ve been using AZERTY for my writing, and I find that it lends itself more so to better eloquence in execution, that the letters find themselves in, for productivity’s sake, and I experience fewer errors, and a more familiar and unified format of workstation environment on my iPad Pro.
I’ll write some updates, here, as they come, as to the status of things with my new job, as well as the outcome of the job that I dumped, perhaps.
The past several weeks have been busy, as far as trying out my purchases in fragrance ingredients, and I’d been allocating a hefty portion of my budget to stocking up on new and former favorite aroma compounds and oils. It wasn’t until this morning that I experimented with my latest haul, in trying on several of my latest purchases neat, but I was very pleased with the rich and exotic sensuous outcomes that zero developing, and I felt that I’d laid the grounds for a new product release, after making use of my recent selections in ingredients. I call it Sophoria (or, Caliphoria). Here’s some of the preliminary work that I did, with ChatGPT:
Fragrance notes:
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| I didn’t even request to include a pigeon in the marketing image, but ChatGPT threw one in there, for good measure, and I happen to like it. |
I tried a second run of applying the ingredients neat, once again, later on, during the same day, although not with as much of the special, homemade vanilla extract (I say “special,” because it was given a very particular course of extraction and processing, far different from creating an absolute). I won’t expand upon the details of that process, just yet, and I was lacking the cashmeran, from my supplies, amongst the ingredients that I’d brought out with me. It came off as a bit cloying, without the edginess of the special vanilla extract, and, lacking the moodiness that comes with a bit of cashmeran, added.
The first time around, additionally, I had also done second and third rounds of neat application, for some of the ingredients that got buried in the mix, during the initial application, and I felt that I’d done well in balancing things out, for applying them in neat fashion, rather than that I would try to concoct a liquid composition of it - a full bottle, of whatever size it may have otherwise been. The smell was more compelling, the first time around, and I had a good day with it, in essence.
There were some notable seeming side effects of mood-lifting/stabilization, almost stimulation, as well as seeming nootropic effects, as I was more motivated to create higher-quality work, at my job.
I was out at the library, doing some remote work on the computer consoles, for a gig that I had just started, recently, and the daylight was ideal for photography at the time I left the library, for dinner. On my way home, I captured some endearing moments of the pigeons at Pershing Square, in bright and vivid colors of Springtime.
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| I love how the bright florets of bougainvillea frame this pigeon’s disposition, at Pershing Square Metro Stztion. |
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| A family of rats munches on some mud, to get a drink of water, after maintenance hosed the place down. |
As far as nicotine vapes (smokeless inhalers) go, a relatively new geeky phenomenon has hit the streets (literally). The Geek Bar Pulse prod...
